Huohuo is Honkai: Star Rail's new top tier healer! Here's how you build her, Light Cone, Relics and more

Honkai: Star Rail version 1.5 is finally here, and with it comes the debut of Huohuo and her possessed tail aptly named Tail!

Huohuo is green-haired Foxian girl from the Xianzhou Luofu and is a Ten-Lords Commission Judge-in-training, even if she doesn't look like it when considering how much of a scaredy-cat she is. But even if she fears the very ghosts she is tasked to catch and exorcise, she wields immense power thanks to Tail, a powerful Heliobus that was sealed within her tail.

Huohuo wields the Wind element and follows the Path of Abundance, providing healing as well as the ability to dispel debuffs, regenerate energy for her allies, and buff their ATK!

If you were lucky enough to get Huohuo to join your party, read on as we break down how to build her as well as her best Light Cones, relics, and teammates!

Is Huohuo better than Luocha?

But before we get into play Huohuo, we do need to discuss first how she fares against other Abundance characters.

Abundance characters are an important part of any team in Honkai: Star Rail as a defensive support that heals any damage sustained by the party through battle. Since every Abundance character can heal, their value must be judged by how good their healing is as well as what other things they bring to the table.

In Huohuo's case, she provides a lot of healing both during her turn and other party members' turns, as well as the ability to dispel debuffs and provide party-wide energy regeneration and ATK buffs.

That already makes her better than all other 4-star and standard 5-star Abundance characters like Natasha, Lynx, and Bailu. But the real question is... is Huohuo better than Luocha, who has been the game's top healer since his release in version 1.1?

Luocha heals an ally with his skill, can heal off-turn whenever an ally falls below half health, summons a field with his talent that heals the entire party whenever a party member attacks, and dispel buffs on enemies with his ultimate.

On paper, Huohuo seems to bring much more to the table than Luocha. However, we have to remember that Luocha is skill point-positive whereas Huohuo is skill point-neutral at best, making it harder to fit her in teams with other characters that need a lot of skill points like Imbibitor Lunae.

Luocha's ability to heal in emergencies is also better, as he automatically heals an ally as soon as they fall below 50% health. On the other hand, Huohuo's emergency healing will only come online during an ally's turn.

And yes, Luocha doesn't have anything like Huohuo's party-wide energy regeneration and ATK buffs, but that comes with her ultimate and can't be a replacement for a Harmony character in your party.

So, with all that said, we think that both Huohuo and Luocha are squarely in the S-tier for Abundance characters and one isn't necessarily better than the other. Both characters bring a lot of good things to the table that come with their own drawbacks which you need to keep in mind when adding them to your teams.

If you don't have Luocha and want to get Huohuo, that's good! If you don't have Luocha and want to skip Huohuo to wait for his rerun, that's fine too. If you have Luocha already and want to get Huohuo, that's great! Now you have the two top Abundance characters in the game sustaining your two teams in Memory of Chaos, more power to you!

Now that we have that out of the way, let's get into how to play Huohuo!

Huohuo's kit and how you can best utilise her

A girl and her (possessed) tail

Huohuo brings a lot more to the table than just healing, as she can cleanse debuffs from her allies as well as regenerate their energy and buff their ATK.

Huohuo's skill, Talisman: Protection, dispels one debuff from a target ally and heals them by an amount equal to 21% of Huohuo's Max HP plus 560 at level 10. In addition, allies adjacent to the skill's target will also get healed by an amount equal to 16.8% of Huohuo's Max HP plus 448.

Huohuo's ultimate, Tail: Spiritual Domination, regenerates 20% of all allies' (except Huohuo herself) max energy and increases their ATK by 40% for 2 turns at level 10.

Meanwhile, Huohuo's Talent, Possession: Ethereal Metaflow, gives her a stack of Divine Provision for 2 turns after using her skill. If Huohuo has a stack of Divine Provision when an ally's turn starts or when an ally uses their ultimate, then she heals that ally by an amount equal to 4.5% of her Max HP plus 120 at level 10. At the same time, every ally whose at 50% HP or lower will also be healed once.

When Divine Provision is triggered to heal an ally, it will also dispel 1 debuff from them, with this effect able to be triggered up to 6 times. Using Huohuo's skill again resets the effect's trigger count.

Huohuo's major Traces improves her ability to sustain the party through battle. First off, her A2 Trace, Fearful to Act, gives her 1 stack of Divine Provision that lasts for 1 turn at the start of a battle.

Huohuo's A4 Trace, The Cursed One, increases her chance to resist crowd control debuffs from enemies by 35%. Her A6 Trace, Stress Reaction to Horror, regenerates 1 energy for her whenever her Talent is triggered to heal allies.

Finally, using Huohuo's Technique, Fiend: Impeachment of Evil, terrorizes nearby enemies and inflicts them with the Horror-Struck debuff, forcing them to run away from her for 10 seconds. When entering battle against enemies afflicted by Horror-Struck, there is a 100% base chance of reducing the ATK of all enemies by 25% for 2 turns.

In battle, make sure to use Huohuo's Technique first to inflict opponents with a 25% ATK debuff and gain 1 stack of Divine Provision. Use her skill when needed to heal allies and keep Divine Provision active, otherwise user her basic attack to generate skill points.

After your other party members are done using their ultimates, use Huohuo's own ultimate to regenerate some energy for them and buff their ATK. You can then keep using her skill to heal allies and keep Divine Provision active, allowing you to outlast any attempts by your opponents to fight back.

When leveling up Huohuo's abilities, prioritise her ultimate first, her Talent second, and her skill third — though you should level them all up to max eventually. You don't need to level up Huohuo's basic attacks, so only level it up if you have the resources to spare.

Huohuo's best gear

Light Cones

Huohuo's best Light Cone is obviously her signature, Night of Fright, which increases her energy regeneration rate by 12%. It also has two very good passive abilities that boost Huohuo's healing capabilities and her allies' ATK.

Whenever Huohuo's allies use their ultimates, the ally with the lowest HP percentage will be healed by an amount equal to 10% of that ally's Max HP. And when Huohuo herself heals an ally, the healed ally's ATK will be increased by 2.4%. This ATK buff stacks up to 5 times and lasts for 2 turns.

While Huohuo's signature Light Cone is a very powerful one, don't feel obligated to get it as she is still excels even with 4-star Light Cones.

Your best bet will be Hey, Over Here, which can be obtained and superimposed to S5 for free during the 'A Foxian Tale of the Haunted' event.

At S5, this Light Cone increases Huohuo's Max HP by 12% and buffs her Outgoing Healing by 28% for 2 turns after she uses her skill.

Two other solid 4-star Light Cones for Huohuo are Quid Pro Quo and Post-Op Conversation.

Quid Pro Quo can easily be acquired and superimposed through the Forgotten Hall's Light Cone Manifest. At S5, it regenerates 16 energy for a randomly-chosen ally (except Huohuo herself) whose current energy is lower than 50% of their maximum.

Meanwhile, Post-Op Conversation is a 4-star gacha Light Cone that increases its wielder's energy regeneration rate by 8% and their Outgoing Healing by 12% after using their ultimate.

If you're looking for a 5-star alternative, then go with Time Waits for No One, Bailu's signature Light Cone. It passively increases its wielder's Max HP and Outgoing Healing by 12% while giving them a means to contribute an additional source of damage to the party.

When the wielder heals an ally, the amount of healing will be recorded and 50% of that will be dealt as damage of the same type as its wielder's to a random enemy attacked by the next ally launching an attack after the wielder heals.

Relics

As for Huohuo's relics, her best Cavern of Corrosion relic set will be a mixed set composed of the 2-piece Passerby of Wandering Cloud and 2-piece Longevous Disciple. The 2-piece Passerby of Wandering Cloud increases her Outgoing Healing by 10% while the 2-piece Longevous Disciple increases her Max HP by 12%.

As for her Planar Ornament relics, your go-to sets will either be the 2-piece Fleet of the Ageless or the 2-piece Broken Keel.

The 2-piece Fleet of the Ageless increases the wielder's Max HP by 12% and, if their Speed reaches 120 or higher, also increases all allies' ATK by 8%. Meanwhile, the 2-piece Broken Keel increases the wielder's Effect RES by 10% and, if their Effect RES reaches 30% or higher, increases all allies' Crit DMG by 10%.

Your choice of Planar Ornament relics for Huohuo will largely depend on whether your other characters could use more ATK or Crit DMG.

With that said, Huohuo can easily reach the 30% Effect RES requirement for the Broken Keel set as she gets 18% Effect RES from her minor Traces. When combined with the 10% Effect RES from Broken Keel, she only needs one relic substat roll to go to Effect RES for her allies to gain a solid 10% Crit DMG bonus.

The main stats you should be looking for are Outgoing Healing Bonus for the body, Speed for the feet, HP% for the Planar Sphere, and Energy Regeneration Rate for the Link Rope. The substats you should be looking for are Effect RES, Speed, flat HP and HP%.

Huohuo's best teammates

As an Abundance character, Huohuo can fit in any team that needs her healing as well as her energy regeneration and ATK buffs. The energy regeneration from her ultimate will be especially useful for characters that need a lot of energy, such as the upcoming 5-star Physical Erudition character Argenti, whose ultimate becomes more powerful based on the amount of energy he consumes upon using it.

Huohuo's ability to provide both healing and energy also makes her the ideal defensive support for dual DPS compositions, such as the top dual DPS combo of Jingliu and Blade.

With that said, Huohuo fits just fine in hypercarry setups with three support characters working together to buff one main damage-dealer. In such a team, Huohuo will have a particularly good synergy with Tingyun, as they can both provide energy and ATK buffs to the team's main damage dealer.

Huohuo will be the featured 5-star character for the first half of Honkai: Star Rail version 1.5, which dropped on 15 November. The second half will see the debuts of the 5-star Physical Erudition character Argenti as well as the 4-star Physical Harmony character Hanya alongside the first rerun for the 5-star Quantum Nihility character Silver Wolf.

For more information on all the new content in version 1.5, check here.

After version 1.5 comes version 1.6 in December, which will see the release of three more new characters in Ruan Mei, Dr. Ratio, and Xueyi.

Yan Ku is a full-time dog parent, part-time (gacha) gamer, and part-time writer.

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